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Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Saudi Arabia’s Reach in Yemen: Fighting for Regional Dominance

RSIS
Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate,
policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary
developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the
official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU.
These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior
permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please
email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang Razali Kassim.

No. 197/2015 dated 16 September 2015

Saudi Arabia’s Reach in Yemen:Fighting for Regional
Dominance

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

The wars in Yemen and Syria represent a battle for regional dominance between
Saudi Arabia and Iran. Military victory in south Yemen may, however, prove
difficult to translate into sustainable political achievement.Commentary

THE WAR by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies against Houthi rebels in Yemen has
become a debilitating sectarian conflict that has reduced large parts of the
impoverished country to rubble and potentially destabilising the region. The
kingdom has framed its approach in stark sectarian terms that has sparked
intolerance towards minorities, first and foremost Shiites, who are depicted as
pawns of an expansionary Iran.

Saudi Arabia fears that its influence, based on its oil reserves and the
administration of Islam’s most holy cities, constitutes but a window of
opportunity. Its greater assertiveness and sectarianism amount to a determined
effort to exploit that opportunity to cement its place in the Middle East and
North Africa’s geopolitics.Making opportunity
permanent

Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented military assertiveness is a key pillar of its
defence doctrine as described by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi scholar with close ties
to the kingdom’s political elite. The doctrine aims to counter, in Obaid’s
words, the three foremost threats to the kingdom: “regional instability, a
revanchist and/or nuclear Iran, and terrorism”.

In a recent article in Al Monitor, Obaid argued that the doctrine was evident
in the crushing by Saudi and other Gulf troops of a popular revolt in Bahrain,
which he defined as “an Iran-backed insurgency” and recent successes of the
Saudi-led Gulf alliance in pushing Houthi rebels and forces loyal to ousted
President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of southern Yemen.

The Saudis and their Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies, especially the
United Arab Emirates, are currently engaged in finishing the job by pushing
north with the objective of ridding the entire country of any groups that are
affiliated with Iran. Once Yemen is secure, the Saudis will begin to plan
utilising their increasing strategic alliances and formidable military
infrastructure to address the Syrian civil war, Obaid asserted.

He asserted that Saudi military planners have already started looking at
potential scenarios where Riyadh could use air power to provide cover for
anti-Assad forces not linked to terrorist groups. Sooner or later, a Saudi
coalition will get involved in Syria, and it will become the largest and most
dangerous front in the conflict between the kingdom, its Arab allies and Iran,
Obaid added.

Sustainable political
achievement difficult

The more aggressive stance of Saudi Arabia is part of the attempt by the
kingdom to avert the force of nature by using its financial muscle to counter
the revolutionary ideology of Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. It has
done so by globally propagating its austere, intolerant vision of Islam that
generated more extreme, violent interpretations adopted by groups like Islamic
State and Al Qaeda that challenge absolute monarchical rule cloaked in an
Islamic veneer.

Notwithstanding its kinetic campaign Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be the
foremost player once the dust has settled from the current bloody
conflict that have sparked the largest wave of refugees since World War Two.

Military victory in southern Yemen may prove difficult to translate into
sustainable political achievement. Long-standing Saudi interference in Yemeni
politics is a key ingredient in Yemen’s mix of complex problems and is
complicated by widespread Yemeni resentment of the humanitarian and civilian
cost of the Saudi military campaign. The battle for northern Yemen may moreover
prove to be more difficult than the one for the south given its complicated
topography as well as greater popular support for the rebels.

Discontent in Bahrain continues to simmer at the surface even though the Saudi
intervention and continued repression have largely stymied mass protests.
Bahrain’s Saudi and UAE-backed refusal to address root causes risks fuelling
radicalisation and potentially offers Iran opportunities to exploit what is
fundamentally a domestic Bahraini problem.

Underlying all of this is, however, a reality that Saudi Arabia is unwilling to
entertain. Its financial and energy muscle, together with its claim to moral
authority derived from its status as the custodian of the two holy cities, is
likely to prove insufficient in the struggle for regional predominance with
countries like Iran, Turkey and Egypt.

Despite having to sort out problems of their own, these three countries
ultimately bring assets to the table that Saudi Arabia does not have or that
match those of the kingdom: a legacy of either empire or identity that is
rooted in thousands of years of history; large populations and huge domestic
markets; significant industrial bases; powerful militaries; and energy
resources that in the case of Iran and most recently in Egypt, which over time
will reduce if not neutralise the kingdom’s competitive edge.

A matter of time

To be sure, Saudi Arabia has an advantage in the Arab world from the fact that
neither Turkey nor Iran is Arab. Being Arab however is unlikely to compete with
rival economic and military power despite Saudi projections that its military expenditure
is cementing its regional role.

It is a matter of time before Iran can match Obaid’s assertion that with over
US$100 billion already spent on conventional military expansion in the past
five years and another $50 billion allocated over the next two years, the
Saudis are fully committed to and capable of out-powering the Iranians.

For Saudi Arabia, the question is whether assertiveness, money, military
expenditure and a moral claim are enough to turn a window of opportunity into a
permanent reality, given the looming prospect of a nuclear agreement that will
gradually return Iran to the international fold; a nationalist Egypt having the
eastern Mediterranean’s largest gas field; and Turkey as a military and
industrial powerhouse.

The kingdom may find that a less intolerant, more inclusive approach, coupled
with greater sensitivity to popular political, social and economic aspirations,
apart from a greater willingness to cooperate with regional rivals, offers
better hope for stability and security. It is a tall order in a world in which
the name of the game is attempting to shape the Middle East and North Africa in
ways that ignore facts on the ground and are geared towards regime survival at
whatever cost.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and co-director of
the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, Germany.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile